[vlehto]

Good electric car battery standard would solve almost all of the problems of electric cars.

1. The battery is where most development happens and where it's most needed. So you don't have to worry about your car getting too old too fast. Just get fresh battery.

2. Range: just swap the battery if you run out of juice. They could be rented like gas bottles are at service station.

3. Battery charge lifespan.

4. Potentially emerging fuel cells. They are just a way to burn something into electricity. Why do you care what kind of black box feeds you car some current?

How could this be done? Build robots at service stations that lift a battery pack into the bottom of the car. Good place could be where the spare wheel currently goes. Bottom of the trunk. You could steal mechanical locking from intermodal containers, just scale it down. And electric connectors could be upscale speakon connectors stolen from pro audio.

[m-i-l]

Tesla did have battery swap stations where the battery would be swapped in around 90 seconds (less time than it takes to fill up a tank)[0]. However, uptake was apparently very small so focus was shifted to building the network of supercharger stations[1].

[0] https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/battery-swap-pilot-program

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/10/tesla-battery-swap/

[toomuchtodo]

Tesla's battery swap station was a compliance tool in order to collect ZEV credits in California. A battery swap station costs ~$500K, while a Supercharger station with charging stalls costs $150K.

Tesla has determined that Supercharging is adequate for Tesla owners, and continued uptake of the product seems to confirm that hypothesis.

[shpx]

Here's a close up demonstration

https://youtu.be/CH-H3-F4Ztc?t=2m8s

[andygates]

The more interesting question, then, becomes "why didn't you swap your battery?" to drivers who charged instead.

[greglindahl]

You had to swap back to your own battery on the way home. When I drive SF/LA, I go down on I5 (passing the swap station) and come back up the coast.

If Teslas had leased batteries it would be easier, but they do not.

[m-i-l]

Charging is currently free, whereas the battery swap was US$60.

[grej]

The idea makes sense. There was an Israeli startup that was trying to do this exact thing that didn't make it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place

[sakri]

Gogoro in Korea is trying to do this with mopeds (or scooters). There was a lot of hype a year ago, haven't heard much since http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/5/7484171/gogoro-smartscooter...

That sounded like a winner to me.

[ZenoArrow]

Here's a recent update about Gogoro:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/5/10707858/gogoro-gocharger-o...

[vlehto]

I think the best situation would be formation of W3C of car batteries. Then they could design a limited set of interfaces. The thing we need is not specific implementation of technology, but somewhat boring specification to work between technologies. Current standardization authorities could do this, but they seem only interested in refining the old ones. (ISO I'm looking at you.)

PG agrees that standards and platforms are not good ground for startups. But I could not find that essay now.

[bluedino]

>> Good electric car battery standard would solve almost all of the problems of electric cars.

It'd create a bunch more problems, just like all cellphones aren't going to use the same battery. Each car is designed around the battery since it's such a large piece of the car.

[vlehto]

>>Each car is designed around the battery since it's such a large piece of the car.

This is not exactly true. Battery is heavy piece, so it has to be low for low center of gravity. The bottom mount is going to happen anyhow. Tesla and Leaf both have their battery in the bottom.

The only real problem would be that you can't use the battery as structural element if it's easily detached. But the bottom center point is not exactly critical for structural integrity, so the result would be slightly increased weight.

[fulafel]

> 1. The battery is where most development happens and where it's most needed. So you don't have to worry about your car getting too old too fast. Just get fresh battery.

Isn't the situation more like, current battery technology (lithium) has only seen small incremental improvements for a while and apart from cost reductions there isn't anything major on short-medium timescale coming up.

You can still put in a new battery around the 10-15 year mark of course even with current cars, with hopefully a fraction of today's cost.

[vlehto]

Personally I'm waiting for the moment when someone notices that you can burn pretty much anything in fuel cell. Then long distance travel could be fueled with vegetable oil or biowaste extracted methane. Once you step away from hydrogen, everything gets much easier. But the hype is on hydrogen and currently the economical incentives for alternatives are lacking.

[RegW]

Gogoro in Taiwan are going the battery swap route with their scooters: http://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/gogoro-scooters/

[bradtemp]

Battery swap failed after a $700M investment from Better Place for many reasons. But the big issue is that with battery swap, car owners do not buy or own their battery. But most of the innovation is in the battery. For innovation, you need competitive markets with lots of buyers and lots of competitors. It's much harder to have that with swap

[ape4]

Might be a bit early for an industry wide battery standard. Can you upgrade the battery with one from the same manufacturer after a few years now?